The Mech Touch

From the moment the Swordmaiden champion known as Venerable Dise Larkinson realized what she had been missing in her pursuit of power, she became complete.

For many years, Venerable Dise proactively sought one challenge after another, seeking to improve her swordsmanship and her survival abilities.

She bravely tested her physical body against numerous different exobeasts, each of which possessed deadly capabilities that could have easily gutted any other human in less than a second.

Dise did not go on these dangerous hunts because she loved the sport like the Hunters.

She solely sought to sharpen her swordsmanship and gain more experience in defeating opponents that were more powerful than herself.

Each time she undertook a hunt, she shed most of her gear, trusting only in the alloy that comprised her greatsword.

It was due to the fact that she was armed with a sharp and resilient metal weapon that she was able to complete one challenging hunt or another.

Although her fragile organic body always held her back, Dise had learned to work around its limitations and find opportunities to make the best use of her formidable blade.

The situation was different when she piloted a mech. Not only was she working on a larger scale, but a machine also opened up a wealth of new options.

From being able to move in more directions to allowing the Unending alloy armor plating to resist damage that would have crippled a fragile human body, piloting a mech always invigorated Dise.

Dise wouldn't have been able to make it so far without the First Sword. Compared to the prior mechs she piloted, Ketis had outdone herself by designing an expert swordsman mech that was nearly perfectly tailored to her swordsmanship and her combat inclinations.

Although Dise's swordsmanship had evolved and changed over the course of her career as a demigod, the First Sword only required minor adjustments to stay in sync with Dise's combat approach.

The First Sword was like a second and vastly more superior body to Venerable Dise.

She likened it as the true body of a phase lord, even if the connection between herself and her expert mech was not permanent.

It didn't matter to Dise. She was just a slightly more special human whenever she was outside of the cockpit, but as soon as she interfaced with the First Sword, her vulnerable human physique became irrelevant.

That was because she embodied a well-engineered mechanical construct capable of outdueling and outfighting many different powerful opponents!

The exobeasts that gave her a challenge when she hunted them on foot could easily be crushed beneath the heel of the First Sword!

Against other mechs and warships, the First Sword was still able to outmaneuver them and strike them down with varying degrees of ease depending on the circumstances.

Dise always felt that she had become an existence akin to a god when fighting with her battle partner.

With every sortie, her bond and understanding of the First Sword grew even further.

Although Dise had gradually increased her complaints about the lack of comprehensive upgrades to her outdated expert mech, there was still an advantage to essentially piloting the same machine year after year.

Dise had reached an unprecedented degree of mastery in controlling her expert mech.

Whereas other Larkinson expert pilots such as Venerable Jannzi, Venerable Joshua and Venerable Vincent Ricklin spent much of their time deepening their mastery of their respective battle partners, none of them were as exacting in terms of skill and control as Dise!

This was no surprise, as Dise had always relied on technique and skill to overcome opponents that were equal or stronger than her expert mech in power.

The better her mastery over the First Sword, the more she could execute her sword techniques, both ordinary and extraordinary, with minimal waste and maximum efficiency.

Over the years, Venerable Dise had regularly managed to defeat her peers in practice spars.

As long as the differences in rank, energy output and resonance strength was not too great, her First Sword was readily able to outduel machines that were a lot stronger and more modern!

All of the fancy new tech and features introduced in the newer expert mechs such as the Phobos, the Lionheart, the Blood Star Mark II and the Greenaxe turned into useless distractions or other obstacles to overcome to the expert pilot that most likened herself to a swordmaster.

While these victories stroked her ego and validated her swordsmanship, Dise still felt inadequate in many ways.

This was because she was unable to defeat all enemies that were equal or slightly stronger than herself.

No matter how much more precise, sharper and more sophisticated her swordsmanship became, she had reached a plateau where further improvements slowed down.

She had to spend months worth of practice and experimentation to slightly make her sword a little more lethal.

Combined with the fact that the boosted growth of resonance strength came to an abrupt end after hitting her bottleneck, Dise became incredibly frustrated by her lack of visible progress!

The more time she spent without making any substantial improvements, the more she began to entertain doubts whether she was as strong as she imagined herself to be. When the reality of her lack of subsequent growth sank in, her mind entertain darker thoughts.

Had the evolution of her swordsmanship taken a wrong turn?

Did she earn the right to feel so conceited about her dueling power when she was unable to confront a phase lord?

Would she become one of the many high-tier expert pilots who would remain forever stuck at their current ceiling?

That last thought haunted her like nothing else. This was one of the worst outcomes for a champion at her level to end up as. Even if the Age of Dawn had rewritten the rules and given mech pilots more opportunities to advance, it still took superhuman effort in order to attain sainthood.

This was the reality to everyone who undertook the most difficult and punishing form of cultivation.

Expert pilots could make do with decent extraordinary willpower.

Ace pilots had to meet higher standards.

Those aspiring to become saints had to prove themselves to be the best of expert pilots. They could never become satisfied with their current advantages and constantly needed to risk themselves to temper and fuel the growth of their willpower and convictions.

Venerable Dise had put in a lot of effort to break through a year after the start of the Age of Dawn.

She actively fought alongside the other Larkinsons of the expeditionary fleet and volunteered for riskier assignments.

Despite the accelerated growth of her resonance strength, Dise personally felt that she sufficiently tempered and mastered her extraordinary willpower.

Her willpower shouldn't be inferior to the likes of Tusa, Casella and Isobel when they triggered their last breakthroughs!

Venerable Dise had also invested a significant amount of time on meditation as well as introspection.

She clarified and reinforced her reasons to fight, which was to protect the Swordmaidens and the comrades of the Larkinson Clan.

Her conviction had always remained consistent, and she made sure that it remained relevant by maintaining her friendships with her fellow Swordmaidens.

They were like fellow sisters or daughters to her. They were weaker, restless and vastly more immature than her. Yet Dise saw pieces of herself in the women who admired her and idolized her as one of the ideals of the Swordmaidens.

How could she not dedicate her life and being to protect them from the nefarious enemies that they were unable to defeat by themselves?

The Swordmaidens did not need coddling. They were more than strong enough to handle any equal challenges.

Yet they were painfully vulnerable against enemies that outclassed them by mass, superior tech and extraordinary power.

Dise had appointed herself as their foremost champion and protector against these vast and nearly undefeatable foes.

Her strength as an expert pilot was not even close to what was necessary to defeat or deter all of those terrible adversaries.

In that sense, Dise had more than enough drive and motivation to pursue greater power!

Yet despite all of these factors, she still remained stuck as an expert pilot!

It was one thing to acknowledge that she was still fairly young compared to other expert pilots and that she still had plenty of decades to go in order to find her breakthrough opportunity.

It was another thing to see even younger expert pilots such as Tusa and Isobel pierce through their bottlenecks sooner than she could imagine!

Why had Dise remained stuck while others overtook her in the race to become the strongest champion of the Larkinson Clan?

This question continued to plague her for months on end.

She spent almost the entire Red Tide Offensive seeking the answer that would quell her doubts, yet none of the battles against the invading aliens gave her any relief!

The swordsman mech specialist never imagined that an impromptu challenge against the projection of a 'genuine' swordsman would deliver her the answer.

How could she have been so blind to such a core aspect of her strength?

As a swordswoman and a mech pilot, Dise had relied on the power of metal to empower herself.

Pure skill was great if she had it in abundance, but without a piece of metal in her hands or around her body, Dise could not even defeat the weakest third-class mech by herself!

It was only when she paired her superior skill and control with the hard power of metal equipment that she could truly bring her potential to life!

The First Sword was not just a living expert mech to her. Now that Dise had begun to recognize the importance of metal, the mech frame sang to her in a way that previous instances of resonance had never evoked!

The Decapitator was more than a mech sword. Dise had always known on an intellectual level that it was a masterwork creation that Ketis had lovingly forged for her fellow Swordmaiden, but how could a mech pilot possibly understand the full significance of this act?

It was only when Dise had opened her eyes to the true power of metal that she truly recognized the special nature and the hidden strength of the Decapitator.

The reason why it was so unnaturally good at beheading other opponents was due to the fact that it was an artifact that surpassed mundane metal products!

Ketis had literally put a piece of herself inside the Decapitator. This not only imbued it with a portion of her own power and intent, but also made it a little more compatible with the element of metal.

Dise had already called upon this power whenever she tried to behead an opponent. She just did not realize the underlying mechanisms and source of power at the time.

All of that had changed today.

Now that the Muscular Swordsman had inadvertently led her to lift the blindness that afflicted her for her entire life up to this point, she finally gained the ability to see how much her life had become intertwined with metal.

Her affinity and intimacy with the Metal E energy attribute were so high that Dise felt as if she was no different from a clown all of this time!

How could she miss such obvious relationships!?

It was only when she had made a fundamental cognitive shift that Dise recognized what she had been missing for so many years.

Everything fell into place.

Having satisfied all of the other conditions to break through a long time ago, her breakthrough after becoming 'complete' happened in an instant!

With more power at her disposal than ever before, her entire life state began to reach a higher level!

Even her companion spirit Respa began to promote to an entity that gained an entirely separate domain!

Forced resonance began to act on the First Sword and the Decapitator, flooding both with the power that temporarily elevated their parameters to the standards of an ace mech!

After years of fighting under clear physical limitations, the unlocking of the power or metal had allowed Dise to fully elevate her willpower to a great height, and thereby amplify the power of any mech she piloted to an even more ridiculous degree!

"I AM THE DUELIST WITHOUT PEER. I AM THE HUNTRESS OF BEASTS. I AM THE MISTRESS OF ALL ALLOYS. MY SWORD SHALL REMAIN FOREVER SHARP AND MY ARMOR SHALL NEVER BREAK. FROM THIS DAY ONWARDS, THE POWER OF METAL SHALL FOREVER FORTIFY MY EQUIPMENT! LET MY MECH SING THIS TRUTH!"

The First Sword glowed with the power and the potential of metal!

A rudimentary Saint Kingdom began to unfold that easily pushed the earth aura generated by the Muscular Swordsman away!

From now on, Saint Dise Larkinson would never allow herself to succumb to the domain of an adversary so easily!

"LET THE BLADE IN MY PARTNER'S HANDS VALIDATE MY CLAIMS!"

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